Chinese mobile maker Huawei on Tuesday proclaimed its 7-inch Springboard android tablet for T-Mobile, a hot device that will compete with different 7 inch tabs like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 and the new Amazon Kindle Fire.Android tablets have been unsuccessful to make significant competition versus Apple’s iPad, but low priced Android-based tablets could begin to gain ground into the iPad’s market percentage since the lower end iPad 2 still rings the cashier at with hefty $499 pricetag. This is where Huawei comes along, offering low-priced Android phones already available in the U.S and Canada.

From reviews gotten from sources that went to the CTIA Enterprise 2011 show that was held in San Diego. The new Springboard android tablet is pretty light weighing in at 14 oz and showing a pretty small size 7.48×5.08×0.41 inches. It feels pretty good in hands and the aluminum outside shell feels amazingly superior compared to Huawei’s plastic phones that feel cheap. The android tablet’s 7 inch display shows a 1280×800 resolution, images looked great and text appeared readable on it. There is a 5 MP camera on back side of the tablet and a 1.3 MP front-facing camera for shooting pictures or videochatting.

On to the performance aspect of the tablet. The Springboard felt somewhat slow compared to the iPad 2, but it was still quick enough while scrolling and opening apps that you can barely detect the sluggishness. The device comes with he latest Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) operating system, which is a nice feature considering it’s optimized for 7 inch tablets. As for hardware, the android tablet features a 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU and HSPA 14.4 data capacities that gives it speedy T-Mobile “4G” data reception.

Regrettably, Huawei and T-Mobile haven’t announced pricing and availability for tablet. Going by the price of their phones already on the market, we know that Hauwei has good knowledge to compete in a market and if it wishes the tablet to compete with the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire, they should aim in keeping it under $200 with or without a contract.

We can only hope that the Huawei spokesperson that was at the CTIA is right when he said that the tablet will be available “before the holidays.”